While Oracle may have considered RIM-Palm an attractive proposition and while HP and RIM might have viewed Oracle as their knight in shining armor, numerous icebergs would have loomed if this voyage came to fruition.

Aside from the fact that Oracle would be setting sail into waters ruled by veterans Google, Inc. (GOOG) and Apple, Inc. (AAPL), it would also be doing so with two firms who were rejected by consumers and left for dead.

Some might call this romance madness, but Mr. Ellison testified that his firm seriously considered making a life with the RIM-Palm, but that critical market research sunk the dream. Instead, Oracle's heart will go on, as it tries to scuttle Google's Android operating system in court on grounds of intellectual property infringement.

In that regard, Oracle could hitch a profits joy-ride aboard Google's wildly successful Android operating system. Oracle shouldn't count its smartphone dollars before they hatch, though, as Google isn't about ready to succumb to it in court. The pair will continue their bitter legal dance in weeks ahead.

"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007